2021-2022 Season
Laughter, inspiration, and a little well-placed cathartic rage — we return to our theaters with a 2021-2022 season that embraces all of those and more as we reckon with the past 18 months and look toward the future. The plays scheduled for our season explore how to make art in a way that honors our artists and expresses hope for a stronger way forward for our community, including our beloved audience members. We can’t wait to get started!
Tickets are $15 general admission, $5 youth, students, and seniors, and can be purchased in advance online at the Fine Arts Center Box Office or by calling 1-413-545-2511.
Before you purchase tickets, please read our Patron COVID Safety Policy to ensure you are prepared. Patrons who are unable to meet the requirements WILL be turned away at the door.
FALL EVENTS
EVERYBODY
by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
Directed by Rudy Ramirez
Oct 15, 16, 21, 22 at 7:30 p.m., Oct. 23 at 2 p.m.
In the Rand Theater, located in the Randolph W. Bromery Center for the Arts at UMass
"You're dying, Everybody. And you're dying alone."
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ play, written before the pandemic, proves a prophetic boon in bringing an audiences an opportunity to deal with the fear and grief that we will probably still carry long after we put away our masks. EVERYBODY offers a funny and cathartic confrontation with Death (who is just trying to do their job, after all) through an adaptation of a 14th century morality play. Death comes for Everybody on what should have just been a fun night at the theater, and Everybody must confront the limits of friendship, family love, material comfort, and the human body itself in an attempt to determine the one thing that they can bring with them as they leave this world.
Content advisory: Strong language, discussions of death
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DANCE NATION
by Clare Barron
Directed by Dawn Monique Williams
Nov. 12, 13, 18, 19 at 7:30 p.m., Nov. 20 at 2 p.m.
In the Rand Theater, located in the Randolph W. Bromery Center for the Arts at UMass
Somewhere in America, an army of pre-teen competitive dancers plots to take over the world. And if their new routine is good enough, they’ll claw their way to the top at Nationals in Tampa Bay. An ensemble of dancers of different ages, races, ethnicities, body types, and gender presentations examines the challenges and triumphs of growing up in this play about ambition, coming of age, and finding one’s soul in the heat of it all. Dance Nation interrogates what “womanhood” is, and embodies a powerful release of rage, joy and liberation.
Please note: This show runs 2 hours without an intermission.
Content Advisory: Gore, coarse language, depictions of self-harm, simulated masturbation and descriptions of masturbation, sex and sexual violence
SPRING EVENTS
WITCH
by Jen Silverman
Directed by Rudy Ramirez
Feb. 25, March 3, 4, 5 at 7:30 p.m., Feb. 26 at 2 p.m.
In the Rand Theater, located in the Randolph W. Bromery Center for the Arts at UMass
"What if there is something amazing ahead of us, and all we have to do is burn down everything we know to get to it?"
Based on a Jacobean play written when witches were still being burned across Europe, Witch follows a devil named Scratch as he plays with the desires, grievances and ambitions of two young men, only to see him shocked and intrigued when an outcast woman becomes the first to refuse his offer. Jen Silverman's play offers a collection of richly drawn characters all forced to confront how their desires are shaped by, and may even be able to do undo, the systems of power that limit them.
Content Advisory: Strong language, violence, and blood
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OLVIDADOS: A MEXICAN AMERICAN CORRIDO
By Elisa Gonzales
Lyrics by Elisa Gonzales
Musical Arrangement, Composition, and Additional Lyrics by Moises Vázquez
A workshop production presented in partnership with Breath of Fire Latina Theater Ensemble (www.breathoffire.org).
Made possible in part by a University of Massachusetts Amherst Faculty Research Grant /Healey Endowment Grant.
Directed by Sara Guerrero
Musical arrangement and composition by Moises Vázquez
April 7, 8, 9 at 7:30 p.m., April 9 at 2 p.m.
In the Rand Theater, located in the Randolph W. Bromery Center for the Arts at UMass
Inspired by the classic structure of a corrido, a traditional Mexican song style that draws on storytelling, folklore, and oral history, Olvidados: A Mexican American Corrido, is a new, musically-driven, theatrical re-imagining of the many untold stories of the Mexican Repatriation of the Great Depression, where over one million Mexicans and Mexican-Americans were illegally and unconstitutionally deported, or repatriated to Mexico. In this workshop production, we see the Repatriation and its effects unfold through the eyes of four women, including the playwright’s grandmother and great-grandmother, who were repatriated to Mexico in 1931, the effects of which still echo through the Mexican-American community today.
Content advisory: Use of racial slurs, and discussion of a child’s death
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FRINGE FEST ‘22
A celebration of varied projects, featuring UMass New Play Lab
To be presented April 21 to May 8 at multiple venues
All events free!
One festival, dozens of pieces to view. Every year, in classes and indie productions, our students, faculty, and staff explore so much theater. This year, we’re gathering them all into a festival of free events showcasing everything from outrageous experimental work to shining new voices to expertly-rendered productions of classic scenes. The Fringe Fest will be anchored by our UMass New Play Lab, a graduate student-driven project that explores various facets of new play development. This year, a collective of graduate students from various theater disciplines will collaborate to cultivate brand-new work in a nimble and flexible process that’s responsive to the needs of each individual project.
UMASS NEW PLAY LAB is the anchor of our Fringe Festival with two exciting new works by two of our graduate students.
Free, but reservations are encouraged. Available in advance online at the Fine Arts Center Box Office or by calling 1-413-545-2511.
Parzival
by Percival Hornak
April 22, 27, & 30 at 7:30 p.m.
Rand Theater, located in the Randolph W. Bromery Center for the Arts at UMass
Parzival is a contemporary trans retelling of Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival, about a young knight who stumbles into a quest that changes his life and reveals his hidden destiny. The play takes inspiration from fanfiction to tell the story of a teen who explores his gender through the Parzival story as its protagonist learns about chivalry, becomes a knight, and searches for the Holy Grail, winning jousts and the hearts of fair young maidens along the way.
Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert.
A Wild Adaptation
by Bianca Dillard
April 21 & 28 at 7:30 p.m. and April 24 at 2 p.m., May 4 at 6:45 in Durfee Gardens. May 4 show is first-come, first-served, bring your own seating.
Curtain Theater, located in the Randolph W. Bromery Center for the Arts at UMass
Red dramatizes the writings of Terry Tempest Williams and the urgency of climate action. Williams is a naturalist who wrestles with community, religious tradition, politics, always with her eye on the fragility of human life. This piece explores questions like: how do we create and claim a personal ethos and sense of spirituality while being rooted in a place and a community bound to conservative religion and politics? Can we honor where we’ve come from in a way that protects life on this planet as we all hurtle closer to climate disaster? What mix of tools can aid us on our journey: grace, rage, community, empathy, acceptance, wildness itself, Magic? Unabashedly & wildly theatrical, 4th wall breaking, embracing of movement, extreme casting and our collective imaginations!
Taylor Rose Mickens 'Bye UMass' Senior Recital and Visual Art Exhibit
by Taylor Mickens
April 22 at 7:30 pm in
Randolph W. Bromery Center, Room 413
Part of our Fringe Festival, admission free, reservation not required but recommended. Reserve your seat.
Cry Wolf
An online audio drama by Shelly Hed
In the small mining town of Rosewood, tensions between the fae and the flesh boil over when the werewolf Lewis siblings are accused of a double homicide. Instinct kicks in, and the town struggles for survival. This three part audio drama explores the nature of fear, and asks the question: who's afraid of the "big, bad wolf"?
An online part of the Fringe Festival, episodes to be released April 23, April 30 and May 7. Episode 1: LIVE NOW on Anchor or Spotify
24-Hour Play Project
Produced by Ali Farina
April 23 at 7:30 p.m.
Curtain Theater, located in the Randolph W. Bromery Center for the Arts at UMass
Students take on the daunting task of going from a blank page to a staged play in 24 hours. Join us to see the results of their mad creative dash.
Part of our Fringe Festival, admission free, check back for reservation details.
A Midsummer Night's Dream
by William Shakespeare
Directed by Ivy Linden-Dionne and Claudia Maurino
Produced by Kaliska Wiley and Madeline Choiniere Barr
April 29 at 7:30 p.m., April 30 at 2 p.m.
Curtain Theater, located in the Randolph W. Bromery Center for the Arts
Part of our Fringe Festival, admission free, reservation not required but recommended. Reserve your seat. SOLD OUT! THERE WILL BE A LIMITED WAITLIST AT THE DOOR.
The Other America
Written by Pedro Eiras, inspired by Nobel Prize Winner Dario Fo's Johan Padan and The Discovery of the Americas
May 1 at 2 p.m.
Curtain Theater, located in the Randolph W. Bromery Center for the Arts
The Other America is a staged reading inspired by Nobel Prize winner Dario Fo’s Johan Padan and The Discovery of the Americas, but instead of telling the story of a stowaway in the 17th century who ends up in a whole different continent, it tells the story of João da Silva, a young man who leaves Brazil to start a new life in the United States of America in the year 2025.
In his epic, difficult and often-times comedic journey, João encounters the many extraordinary challenges that all immigrants face as they cross the border towards the land of opportunity, freedom, and bravery… only to discover that there is another America, one in which opportunity is only for a very few, freedom often unattainable, and bravery an act of daily survival.
Part of our Fringe Festival, admission free, reservation not required but recommended. Reserve your seat here.
Playing With Fire
August Strindberg’s comedy in one act
Translated from Swedish and directed by Ulrika Brand
May 3 at 6 p.m.
Randolph W. Bromery Center for the Arts, Room 413
A Reading with DJ Dragicevich, Milan Dragicevich, Ivy Linden-Dionne, Claudia Maurino and Michael O’Malley
The tranquil life of a well-to-do family summering at the seaside is disrupted by the arrival of a “friend,” who has long harbored a romantic attraction to the wife of the son.
Strindberg, known as a “father of Modern Drama”, is famous for Miss Julie, A Dream Play and The Dance of Death. This short play, in a lighter vein, was inspired by his own love triangle with Baron Wrangel and Siri Von Essen, who was to become his first wife.
Part of our Fringe Festival, admission free, reservation not required but recommended. Reserve your seat here.
Webgirl
by Sena Yacteen
May 6 at 7:30 p.m., May 7 at 2 and 7:30 p.m., May 8 at 1 and 6:30 p.m.
Curtain Theater, located in the Randolph W. Bromery Center for the Arts
Something exciting is swinging onto the UMass stage this spring. It's your friendly local Super-Cool, Super-Awesome, Super-Hot, Super-Smart, Superhero…Webgirl!
During the day, Winnie is your average teen girl, living in the city with her Aunt Fay and Uncle Lenny, and trying to navigate the social chaos of high school. At night, she transforms into Webgirl, a web-shooting spider-hero, fighting crime and saving lives left and right, under the watchful (and sometimes critical) eyes of her adoring fans. When a new Villain appears, Winnie is called to action, and her life is turned upside down in a frenzy of TV cameras and unpredictable attacks. How will she learn to defeat the Villain, protect her family, and—through it all—be herself?
A side-splitting superhero parody, hilarious and full of heart, come let Webgirl save your world!
Part of our Fringe Festival, admission free. Reserve you seat here.
Class Showcases
Class projects and showcases being presented by the Department of Theater.
These events are free and seating will be first-come, first-serve.
"ACTING SHAKESPEARE" PERFORMANCE SHOWCASE
Tuesday May 3rd, at 8:30pm
Arts Bridge, Room 413
Bromery Center for the Arts
An exciting medley of scenes interwoven seamlessly with monologues.
MUSICAL THEATER SHOWCASE
All are welcome to join us for our Musical Theater Showcase in The Curtain Theater at 7:30 on Monday, May 9th!
We'll share pieces from Hamilton, Chicago, Sweet Charity, Wicked, Legally Blonde and Into the Woods.
Co-taught by Gina Kaufmann (Theater), Lauren Cox (Dance) and Marjorie Melnick (Music), the showcase features Ali Farina, Carolyn Ferris, Michael Filip, Parker Fisher, Clara Franklin, Charlotte Hogan, Caleb Kovalchik, Beth Laine, Arianna Morales, Jimmy Murphy, Caroline Richardson, Kitty Ryan, Sophie Schweik, Emrose Seidenberg, Emma Stankiewicz and Sarah Tonks.
End your semester, with some singing, dancing and musical theater joy!
Before you purchase tickets, please read our Patron COVID Safety Policy to ensure you are prepared. Patrons who are unable to meet the requirements WILL be turned away at the door.
Fringe Event are FREE.
For all other events, tickets are $15 general admission, $5 youth, students, and seniors, and can be purchased in advance online at the Fine Arts Center Box Office or by calling 1-413-545-2511.
Subscription and group discounts available. Please note: because Fringe events are still being set and will have varying price points, Fringe Fest '22 is not part of any subscription package.
UMass Theater follows UMass campus closing policy. If campus is closed for weather or other emergencies, please visit our website or contact the box office for further information.
Help us build the Future of Theater
Your gift to us helps us build the future of theater. Donate to help us maintain state-of-the-industry facilities for students to learn in, or give to one of our scholarship awards to help them sharpen their craft. Visit our giving page for more information.
Before you purchase tickets, please read our Patron COVID Safety Policy to ensure you are prepared. Currently we do not require vaccines or PCR tests. We do encourage but not require masks.
